8.25.2004

the ragin asian gets some culture

so yesterday was the free day at the art institute so i went to go lose myself amidst all the statues of naked greek women. when i got to michigan ave, i found out that they had done a major remodeling of grant park and it was actually pretty amazing. they now call the area between washington and randolph millenium park and it has all sorts of neat stuff there. most notably was an art exhibition by uwe ommer called "1000 families". basically this guy went around the world, went to public places, looked for families and then asked if he could take their picture. the result is surprisingly...well...moving. the most obvious thing that strikes someone when viewing these pictures is how different the families look in their clothing, size, appearance, etc. but after a while, i did notice how happy they all seemed. i mean it seems that everyone had a huge smile on their face, and not to get super sappy on you, but it was a little reassuring that despite any hardships that these families faced, they could take time to pose for some complete stranger. also, in some of the african family pictures, the women weren't wearing tops.

the art institute was as usual stellar. i have some thoughts about art that i'd like to blog about in general, but i'm a little too hung over to be coherent about it right now.

on a related note, i have been eating non stop since i've been here. last night i went to harold's chicken shack right off the washington stop on the brown line. i don't know what they do to their chicken, but it's f-in good.